sportlich
[ˈʃpɔʁtlɪç]
The verdict
“sportlich” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #6,857 in German word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #6,857
- frequency rank, German
- 9
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - den Sport betreffend, zum Sport gehörend
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sportlich |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | [ˈʃpɔʁtlɪç] |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #6,857 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sportlich” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for sportlich is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈʃpɔʁtlɪç]. Corpus data places it at rank #6,857 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for sportlich, with forms such as "psortlich", "soprtlich", and "sporltich". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "sportliche", "sportlichen", "sportlicher", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct German form is sportlich, spelled S-P-O-R-T-L-I-C-H.
Definition
- 1den Sport betreffend, zum Sport gehörend
- 2im Sport begabt seiend
- 3ehrlich, fair; meist im Rahmen eines sportlichen Wettkampfes
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: psortlich,soprtlich,sporltich,sporrtlich,sportilch,sportlcih,sportlicch,sportlichh,sportlihc,sportllich,sporttlich,spotrlich,spportlich,sprotlich,ssportlich
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sportlich - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "sportlich"?
What does "sportlich" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sportlich"?
How do you pronounce "sportlich"?
What language does "sportlich" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “sportlich”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is S-P-O-R-T-L-I-C-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈʃpɔʁtlɪç] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sportliche” - see the side-by-side comparison. sportlich vs sportliche
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.